Energy Ogre, the Houston company that finds low-priced electricity plans for consumers, has found a way to cash in on the confusion in the Texas electricity market.

The company, which got its start about five years ago, cuts through the hundreds of offers from dozens of retail electric providers in the deregulated parts of Texas by scouring the state-run website Power to Choose, comparing the electricity plans offered by retail providers and negotiating independent deals with providers.

Energy Ogre offers a concierge-like product that for $10 a month signs up consumers and small businesses for the cheapest electricity plans. If better deals come along, the company will evaluate whether it makes sense for customers to pay a termination fee to take advantage of the offer. The company doesn’t receive commissions from retail providers, a practice common among electricity brokerage firms paid to find customers.

Energy Ogre has about 100,000 customers. CEO and co-founder Jesson Bradshaw sees plenty of opportunity for growth by encouraging more consumers to shop for power. A few minutes of research, he said, can lower a family’s bills by hundreds of dollars a year. But too many consumers are still not paying attention.

Bradshaw got his start in the power business in the mid-1990s at NGC Corp., a gas and power marketing company that eventually became Dynegy, the power marketer. Bradshaw spoke with Texas Inc. at his office in Greenway Plaza. His edited interview follows.

Jesson Bradshaw, CEO of Energy Ogre

Age: 46

Education: BA in economics at the University of Dallas

First job: Taco Bell at the age of 15

Favorite book: Republic by Plato

Hometown: El Paso

Favorite sport: Football. Houston Texan fan

Favorite vacation destination: Canadian Rockies

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Q: How did you start Energy Ogre?

A: I’ve been in the power space for quite a long time. I think consumers are a little bit out-gunned trying to make good decisions. Some of it’s structural because of the way everything was set up and some of it’s because there is an information overload for the average consumer. Most people don’t want to think about energy. They want it to work. A lot of people don’t think about their electricity until it goes off or until they get a bill.

Q: There are lots of commercial shopping sites available in the market. How is your company different?

A: A lot of the comparison sites put up plans that they’re getting bounties on. We have this problem where a lot of people who are advising or presenting options to consumers have a profit motivation not to really work on behalf of consumers. There is no financial incentive to bring the lowest cost plans to consumers.

We have a fiduciary obligation to our customers to work exclusively on their behalf. We don’t receive compensation from any retailers. I derive a humongous amount of personal and professional satisfaction from putting an extra $200, $500, $1,000 in the pockets of our average members. I talk to many elderly folks and folks on fixed incomes that a little bit extra makes a humongous difference in the quality of their life.

Q: The Public Utility Commission has cracked down on the misleading plans offered by retail electric providers and adjusted the automatic settings on its Power to Choose website so that it no longer automatically loads some of the more confusing plans. Has that affected your business because the changes make it easier for consumers to find low-cost straight-forward electricity plans on their own?

A: I don’t think so. We’re not a plan-picking service that puts someone in a plan and then worries about it a year or six months from now. We serve the customer service function for our customers. We answer questions about their bills, update their payment information with their provider and we monitor what they’re paying versus new rates and offers that come into the marketplace. We run the math to see if they should switch.

Q: Do you pay the bills on behalf of your customers?

A: No. They pay them directly. We will help them set up auto pay if they’d like.

Q: What kind of savings can you offer?

A: Depending on where someone starts out from, we can typically generate savings between 25 percent to 40 percent. That could be someone who never switched providers before or fell out of contract. Some folks save less than that because they’re already actively shopping. People come originally for the savings and stay for the convenience of having us take care of it for them.

Q: And they can’t do that themselves?

A: The problem with the marketplace is that it is structured in such a way that assumes the consumer is actively involved with this process, and that is one of the reasons folks have struggled. It’s the right thing from a consumer protection perspective that retail providers can’t automatically roll someone from a fixed priced contract to another fixed price contract. Consumers have to sign up for that willingly.

But when people get distracted it’s easy to fall out of contract. Or they opt to renew. The renewal process is typically not a competitive one, yet a lot of consumers will say the plan has a celebrity who endorses it so it must be good. They will roll it over because it’s easier to do that than checking to see if the rate is competitive.

Q: Do celebrity endorsements matter?

A: Legacy retail electric providers still get a lot of business because of their affiliations and the perception they’re a good provider. I hear it all the time: “If I’m with such and such provider the next time a hurricane comes through I’ll probably get my power back on first because they’re the biggest player.” But that’s just not true.

I am saddened that people don’t understand how it works, but I’m not surprised. Choosing an electric provider is a huge change no one had any experience with, coupled with all the excitement of going to see your dentist. It’s not anything anyone wants to think too much about. Power falls to the bottom of the priority list until there is a problem like the power goes out or you get an astronomically high bill. But even without a whole lot of effort, a whole lot of people could find a better rate than they’re in today.

Q: How do you get past that apathy?

A: A lot of people don’t really understand how much they’re overpaying. It’s almost like car insurance. or cell phone bills. I don’t think it’s unique to power. A lot of people don’t want to invest the time looking into it.

The incumbent providers have been losing people who are more price conscious but they’ve kept many customers who are essentially asleep at the wheel and not motivated enough to change. It’s hard for me to understand. If you were going to buy something else online like shoes you’d check two or three sites, but for some reason we have not gotten there on the power side.

Q: Are people frustrated with their electricity provider?

A: I think everyone has had a bad experience one way or another. Some of them are frustrated because they don’t understand the rules and how it works, like when their contract ends and their rate goes up.

Q: What drives that?

A: I don’t think our industry has a legacy of consumer excellence, going back to the old utility days when it was take it or leave it. A lot of people who run retail businesses come from that legacy, so customer service is not always job number one. Retailers who make customers feel like an important part of the process have much better outcomes. That’s what we’re trying to do by making it as simple as possible.

Q: How did Energy Ogre get its name?

A: Some early employees said we need to find something fun, memorable and unique. It just goes to show we try not to take ourselves too seriously.

L.M. Sixel writes about the economy and the workplace for the Houston Chronicle. She writes a weekly column called "Working" that appears each Thursday.

She started her newspaper career at the Beaumont Enterprise. Before that, she earned a Bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master's degree in economic history from the London School of Economics.